Thread: Galantamine + Choline

I add to the list of side effects that I have experienced during the day after taking these supplements is accelerated heart beat. The side effects wore off during the day and disappeared the next day. I would say that the overall after-effect is similar to an alcohol hang-over, but only the physical effects, without the mental depression that alcohol hang-over sometimes cause. I will try again in a few days the same dose, and if I succeed in the WILD again, I will try with a lower dose.

Nice stuff, if it works for you then keep at it but don't keep taking it to the point in which you depend on the stuff, think of it as an aid to help you experiment to see what you can achieve if you put effort into it. Don't depend on these things to help you. You need to try things naturally once in a while.

Hey this sounds worth trying. Thanks for the post. I know choline is safe to take everyday, as is galantamine, but I just read on Wikipedia that its most common side effect is upset stomach, which may explain the heartburn.

They are good drugs, however, and unlike what the above poster said, it would not be a bad thing for someone to be "dependent" on them since they increase brain function and memory. Its like saying its bad to become attached to bananas or vitamins... but anyone knows if they regularly take a vitamin and then stop they feel tired since their bodies are used to having more nutrients to work with...

Originally Posted by Lucid Seeker

Nice stuff, if it works for you then keep at it but don't keep taking it to the point in which you depend on the stuff, think of it as an aid to help you experiment to see what you can achieve if you put effort into it. Don't depend on these things to help you. You need to try things naturally once in a while.

I agree.

Originally Posted by memeticverb

Hey this sounds worth trying. Thanks for the post. I know choline is safe to take everyday, as is galantamine, but I just read on Wikipedia that its most common side effect is upset stomach, which may explain the heartburn.

They are good drugs, however, and unlike what the above poster said, it would not be a bad thing for someone to be "dependent" on them since they increase brain function and memory. Its like saying its bad to become attached to bananas or vitamins... but anyone knows if they regularly take a vitamin and then stop they feel tired since their bodies are used to having more nutrients to work with...

Cholin is a normal nutrient that exists in many foods, but galantamine isn't. Some say galantamine can improve memory, but it also have a lot of side effects. Also, you can develop a tolerance to galantamine, and then it will not work as lucid aid, so I wouldn't use it too much. In any case it takes about 48 hours for galantamine to flush out of the body, so it's not a good idea to take it every day. Once in 2 or 3 days is probably safe, if once in a while you take at least a week off it, to get rid of any tolerance that may have developed.

In any case I look at such supplements as way to help my progress in LD mastering.
I will use the analogy of swimming: At first it's often advised to people learning to swim to use floaters. After they get the hang of the motions, they can get rid of the floaters.

The problem with LD is that it's a bit of an All or Nothing ability, in this I mean that you become lucid, or you don't. I know there is the semi-lucid state, but that usually not really an intermediate step, but more like a variant.
With most things that we learn, the progress is gradual, but with LD the progress is a quantum leap between non lucidity and lucidity.
I think this is why it is so difficult to learn to LD. In theory, what such supplements can do is help to breach this quantum leap, help to succeed in LD even without mastering it, and if you are careful not to become dependent on the supplements, it might be used as an intermediate step.

Originally Posted by dodobird

Cholin is a normal nutrient that exists in many foods, but galantamine isn't. Some say galantamine can improve memory, but it also have a lot of side effects. Also, you can develop a tolerance to galantamine, and then it will not work as lucid aid, so I wouldn't use it too much. In any case it takes about 48 hours for galantamine to flush out of the body, so it's not a good idea to take it every day. Once in 2 or 3 days is probably safe, if once in a while you take at least a week off it, to get rid of any tolerance that may have developed.

In any case I look at such supplements as way to help my progress in LD mastering.
I will use the analogy of swimming: At first it's often advised to people learning to swim to use floaters. After they get the hang of the motions, they can get rid of the floaters.

The problem with LD is that it's a bit of an All or Nothing ability, in this I mean that you become lucid, or you don't. I know there is the semi-lucid state, but that usually not really an intermediate step, but more like a variant.
With most things that we learn, the progress is gradual, but with LD the progress is a quantum leap between non lucidity and lucidity.
I think this is why it is so difficult to learn to LD. In theory, what such supplements can do is help to breach this quantum leap, help to succeed in LD even without mastering it, and if you are careful not to become dependent on the supplements, it might be used as an intermediate step.

Hey could you tell me where you found that Galantamine isnt safe for every day? Ive heard that it is fine if you dont suffer from the side effects.

It seems that if someone gains from supplements they should continue taking them if they are not causing side effects. With drugs, especially herbal or natural ones, if they do not harm the body, like hard drugs do, then there is no such thing as becoming dependent on them.

With lucid dreaming there isnt really a way any suppliment can make someone LD. Herbs can only be indirectly causally responsible. If taking choline makes it easier, then it should every time, and to stop taking it wouldnt be good since it aids brain function and some people naturally dont produce enough of the right nutrients. Ive been taking Baopa Caapi for increased memory and have noticed improvement as well as synergistic effects with other substances. I might take it for the rest of my life

Originally Posted by memeticverb

Hey could you tell me where you found that Galantamine isnt safe for every day? Ive heard that it is fine if you dont suffer from the side effects.

The problem is that side effects for galantamine are very common. I experienced the neurological effects that I described above, and they where not nice at all.
( Afcourse, it could also be from the Cholin, or the dosage I tried, I intend to investigate into this further by experimentation ).

Originally Posted by memeticverb

Hey could you tell me where you found that galantamine

It seems that if someone gains from supplements they should continue taking them if they are not causing side effects. With drugs, especially herbal or natural ones, if they do not harm the body, like hard drugs do, then there is no such thing as becoming dependent on them.

You cannot be dependent on galantamine as you do on addictive drugs. but personaly I don't want to be dependent on an external chemical for LD mastery. I want to be able to have LD's by pure mental training.

Originally Posted by memeticverb

With lucid dreaming there isnt really a way any suppliment can make someone LD. Herbs can only be indirectly causally responsible. If taking choline makes it easier, then it should every time, and to stop taking it wouldnt be good since it aids brain function and some people naturally dont produce enough of the right nutrients. Ive been taking Baopa Caapi for increased memory and have noticed improvement as well as synergistic effects with other substances. I might take it for the rest of my life

Choline is a nutrient, but galantamine isn't. galantamine inhibits the enzyme that breaks down acetyl-cholin. The body has a mechanism for controlling the levels of the neuro-transmitters. In a healthy person, this mechanism works well, and so you are able to be alert during the day, tired during the night, hyper-alert if there is danger, relaxed after you eat ( so that the body can invest energy on digestion ), etc.

Sometimes we want to disrupt this mechanism, for example by drinking coffee, which makes us more alert and concentrated. but disrupting this mechanism should be done thoughtfully and carefully, otherwise it causes you problems. The simplest example is that drinking coffee at night may cause you trouble falling asleep. Other substances that disrupt the neuro-transmitter natural balance can be much more harmful.

Galantamine certainly disrupts the mechanism of controlling levels of acetyl-choilne. When the body wants to break down acetyl-choilne to reduce its level, it does so for a reason, and galantamine don't let the body reduce the level.

Taking galantamine occasionally for dream enhancement, or for attempting to progress on LD mastery is in my opinion legitimate, but I wouldn't do it too often.

Hi dodobird,

this supplemented approach is indeed reliable. A friendly guy named Thomas Yuschak investigates supplements for lucid dreaming since a long time and made great progress. I don't know if you have your ideas from his page, but in case you do, you should tell the people.

You can access his research here: http://www.advancedld.com/LDS_profiles.html

or buy his book, where he describes in detail, how everyone can achieve LDs with supplements.

Please don't take this as offence.

Greetings,

DS

Originally Posted by DreamScience

Hi dodobird,

this supplemented approach is indeed reliable. A friendly guy named Thomas Yuschak investigates supplements for lucid dreaming since a long time and made great progress. I don't know if you have your ideas from his page, but in case you do, you should tell the people.

You can access his research here: http://www.advancedld.com/LDS_profiles.html

or buy his book, where he describes in detail, how everyone can achieve LDs with supplements.

Please don't take this as offence.

Greetings,

DS

Yes I read this book, and like you guessed I based this experiment on this book.
I think this book is very interesting but if you make web searches on the subject of supplements and LD you will find very little information.
The only apparent consensus is that B6 vitamin is useful, but even that some people believe it's just placebo.
Other than that you will find only scattered information on the web, almost all of it isn't tested scientifically. This shows that this is a very new area, and everything is still in the experimental stage.
Because of this I don't think anyone can truthfully claim that they really know anything for sure, and indeed throughout the book Yuschak reports what works on himself, and what may work also on others, based on his experience, experience of others that he know that have tried it, and knowledge of physiology. I think Yuschak is quite honest in his approach, and I like that.

In any case, my point is that I still have no idea whether the approach works, and because of that I don't think I should give any credit to the web site, nor should I recommend anyone to try it.

After I complete a lot more experimentation on the supplements suggested by this book, I intend to write a book review to this forum, but now it is way too early. All I can say for now is that this book is interesting to read, written well, concise, and got some ideas that can be tried.

What my intention was, is to tell the people that there is more research data available out there although it is not much. If anyone is interested to try it, he should have all information at hand.
Personally I don't think that it is a good strategy to withhold this information.

I for myself can tell you, that I had some good experiences with his approach, not that good as he describes it, but the direction is the right one. If someone is interested and can speak German, there is a big Thread here:
http://37351.rapidforum.com/topic=101272358916

Greetings,

DS

Yea, I see what you mean, but I was not withholding information from the forum because Yuschak approach has already been mentioned on the forum at least twice, and he also posted himself, and anyway, when I write about an experiment, I don't think there is a need to everything that I ever heard about it, but instead to focus on whats relevant to the experiment report, for example I did not mention anything about the brilliantdreams pill, or the dreamamin pill, or the LaBerge patent that all suggest the same approach, nor did I explain anything about the physiological reason behind the approach.
This is just a preliminary report of an experiment, which may not even work, so there is no need to supply more background information at this stage unless I am asked about it.

To see the German forum page suggeted by DreamScience, you can use this link ( google translation )

http://translate.google.com/translat...language_tools

It's quite funny to read the translation. DreamScience, does the GAME word in this translation supposed to be WILD?

Hey all,

I've been using Galantamine for almost a year now - not every night or anything like that though - so I figured I'd join the thread.

I first heard of the pill when I attended LaBerge's dreamcamp in Hawaii. Those who volunteered to be part of the experiment would take a pill to be used during the WBTB process for three nights. Of the three pills, one was a placebo. The other two were different dosage pills of galantamine (4mg and 8mg). We then recorded our results over the three nights. For me, the results showed the galantamine had an effect in my dream vividness and very possibly lucidity as well. And I only say possibly because at the time I was also testing the NovaDreamer so it's hard to tell which had more of an effect.

Anyway, one key thing to consider with Galantamine is the time when you ingest it. For a while it had been hit or miss. However, by chance, I found myself waking up at around 4am for about a week straight (no supplements ingested). Kind of pissed off about it, I figured "eh, might as well pop a Galantamine pill and see what happens". Normally I wouldn't do this, as I knew I'd have to be up in just two hours. However, the results were tremendous -- TWO WILDs and vivid non-lucids.

I thought this might have been luck. However, the following two occasions in which I had awoken at around 4am and took the supplements, I was succesfull again! (Just this morning I woke up around 3:40am, took a G pill and yet again, a lucid).

So, I think there is timming involved as well when taking ANY supplement. Obviously, the earlier in the morning, the longer the REM periods. So I'm sure that was a factor. However, knowing how long it takes a supplement to hit your system is important in order to try and sync it up to your REM periods.

Hmm google only translated the first 3 posts in the page, and it works much better with the AltaVisa translation. To use it go to: http://babelfish.altavista.com/ and paste this address: http://37351.rapidforum.com/topic=101272358916 in the "Translate a Web page" field, Select German to English, and press Translate.

Third WILD attempt with Galantamine + choline: Success.
Dose: Galantamine 4mg, choline 500mg.
Time: 4.5 hours after going to sleep I woke up, stayed up from about 15 minutes, and went back to bed.
Report: I was doing the WILD very badly: I couldn't relax, couldn't concentrate, I kept thinking about things in life that bother me, and I moved from time to time. All the things that suppose to ruin a WILD attempt.
Even so, after about 30-40 minutes, I felt like I was being swept away, and boom, I was in a lucid dream. The dream was long, stable, clear, and very simple. I was in a large building with people. There wasn't any story, and there wasn't any depth, anything strange about the surrounding or anything very interesting. Like my previous attempt, the dream was a lot less interesting than all my non-lucids, and all my DILD's.
But I made the dream interesting myself by doing lots of stuff: jumping from hight windows, sex ( twice ), trying to meditate, trying to read, and something else that I'm too embarressed to say.
Side Effects: This time I felt no side effects at all when I got up in the morning. This could be because of 2 things:
1. I woke late ( because I didn't have work today ), so I slept through most of the side effects that may have been there.
2. Right After I woke from the dream, I took Peracetam. This is another thing I got from Yuschak's book: Peracetam as a way to counter the effect of Galantamine.
The difference in side effects from my previous attempt was huge.

Conclusion: From these attempts I believe that these supplements are very effective. It's not just that I succeeded in the WILD, and had long, stable dreams, but I also I take into account the fact that I'm a novice in WILD, and that in these particular cases I was doing the WILD attempt very awkwardly. But this are just 2 successful attempts, and I'm still not sure.

I will repeat the exact same experiment a few times longer, once or twice a week, and I will report in this thread.

Yes, dodobird,

from my experience these supplements are really _the_ best WILD supplement I know.

I made a series of experiments with Galantamine and Choline myself over the past few weeks. What can I tell you?

I made 10 attempts on 10 nights. Got lucid on every one of them.
40 % those were WILDs, the rest DILDs.

WILDing into a lucid dream is incredibly easy for me with these supplements.
I usually sleep less than 5 hours, take the supplements and make a WBTB for an hour. Then I stay in bed on my back for 15 minutes to get calm. After that I roll on my right side and in most cases only wait for the effects to start. Normally I will not have to wait very long.

I got motivated by reading Thomas Yuschak's book. Side effects are only very limited, even with 8 mg Galantamine. But I have to stress that I only make a new try after at least 2 nights off.

I did a little research on galantamine a while back and thought that I read that it didn't get into the central nervous system when taken orally. From your experiences, that seems not to be true.

Thanks for sharing this. I'll have to get that book.

B6 used to work for me, but it quit working. It definitely wasn't a placebo effect, but it just doesn't seem to work anymore.

Originally Posted by Moonbeam

I did a little research on galantamine a while back and thought that I read that it didn't get into the central nervous system when taken orally. From your experiences, that seems not to be true.

Galantamine is sold here as a prescription medicine (to treat Alzheimer's desease). It is taken orally so you can assume that it is effective when used in that way.

The key to success with Galantamine lies in the way that you take it: just shortly before you start your WILD attempt (maybe an hour or so is fine). And combine it with Choline. That will build up enough acetylcholine to start a REM phase eventually (provided you have acetyl also, but you can make that sure by taking Vitamin B5).

Additionaly you benefit from the stimulation of the nicotinic receptors, which is something Galantamine also does. I experimented with nicotine patches in the past, but would estimate that Galantamine (used in this way) is even a bit more effective.

It is really astonishing how good the Galantamine/Choline combination works for me. It's just like preparing to have a WILD night, sleeping a few hours of good and deep sleep, than WBTB, taking the supplements, going back to bed and kind of just wait for the vibrations (or whatever you're experiencing) to start your lucid dream.

B6 used to work for me, but it quit working. It definitely wasn't a placebo effect, but it just doesn't seem to work anymore.

Yeah, for me too. But I used it on rare occasions only (maybe once every few weeks) so I did not really experience tolerance.

FYI, I took my Galantamine supplement last night (which includes 200mg of choline) and yet again it worked. I have noticed that there are occaisions which the supplement will have the effect of keeping me awake shortly after taking it - and I was convinced this was one of those occasions. However, after eventually falling asleep I experienced one memorable case of hypnopompia (didn't result in WILD) and then, eventually, a DILD in which I recognized my dreamsign.

Since the Galantamine and Choline come in the same pill, I'm curious as to whether bumping up the Choline intake (in a separate pill) will make a difference. Also, the pill includes B5 (but I take 100mg of B6 every night already) - anyone know of any clearly defined difference in the effect each is responsible for?

Vitamin B5 will aid in acetylcholine synthesis, so this is what we need here (high acetylcholine levels during sleep = REM, dreaming)

Vitamin B6 is AFAIK mainly used in the L-tryptophane/5-HTP/serotonin/melatonin conversion chain, so it's a different approach.

Thanks for the info, lucidus. I don't know if it exactly tolerance that I developed from the B6--it just never works anymore, no matter how long I wait in between doses. Maybe permanent tolerance, darn.

Have you tried the chantix? If so, how does that compare?

No, I have never tried chantix.

I think I will stay away from synthetic substances..

BTW, I made another attempt with galantamine/cholin and got lucid again (als usual ) This time I even orgasmed in the lucid dream without awakening.

As I read Yuschak's book I think I will now extend the "primary trigger" by other substances (already experimented a bit).
Yohimbine will be on my list again. Also the combination galantamine and nicotine can be quite powerful.

Side effects update: a couple of days after my third attempt, I had nasty intestine crumps for a day, which resided over several more days. I will have to check if these return after further attempts to determine if they are related to the supplements.

Forth WILD attempt with Galantamine + choline: Partial success.

This time in addition to 4mg Galantamine and 500 mg choline when doing WBTB, I took 100mg of 5-HTP at bed-time. Yuschak suggests taking it as both to improve the sleep quality on nights that you take Galantamine ( because then you will have good deep sleep the first half of the night to compensate for the extended REM sleep the caused by the Galantamine and choline ), and also because it causes an REM rebound the second half of the night.
For me this didn't work well on this attempt. When I woke for the WBTB, I was very refreshed and afterwards during the WILD attempt I couldn't fall asleep. I was just not sleepy enough. I managed to get to the stage of the vibrations many times, I'd say about 10 times, but I couldn't cross over to the dream state.
Galantamine and choline are also stimulants, so after sometime it became even harder to fall asleep, and I struggled like this until the morning. However, just before I gave up and got up, I did managed to cross through the HI transition, and into a lucid dream. Unfortunately the dream was very unstable and I woke after about 20 seconds.
Again I took 3200mg Peracetam after I woke up to counter the Galantamine, and I don't feel any Galantamine 'hang-over'.